Active-duty US soldier stationed in Germany is identified as having military’s first known case of monkeypox
An active-duty U.S. soldier based in Germany has been identified as the military’s first known case of monkeypox.
The soldier — who has not been named — tested positive for the tropical disease at the base in Stuttgart, in the country’s southwest region where about 23,000 soldiers are stationed, CNN reported.
Military officials have now quarantined the individual in their quarters until symptoms subside.
Revealing the case on Friday navy Capt. William Speaks said: ‘We can confirm that a duty service member from the Stuttgart military community recently tested positive for monkeypox.
‘The individual was seen and treated at the Stuttgart Army Health clinic and is currently in isolation.’
It comes as America’s monkeypox cases tally rose to 49 on Friday, with Rhode Island becoming the fifteenth state to report a case of the disease.
In a briefing Friday Dr Rochelle Walensky, head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), said monkeypox was being passed on through physical contact with symptomatic patients and by touching their clothing and bedding.
But attempting to clear up whether face masks are needed to avoid catching the rash-causing virus, the epidemiologist explained the rash-causing virus would not ‘linger in the air’ like Covid.
‘The disease is not spread through casual conversations, passing others in a grocery store, or touching things like door-knobs,’ she said. ‘All of the case we have seen to date in this outbreak have been related to direct contact.’
During the conference health officials also called on Americans with any sexually transmitted infection — including syphilis, gonorrhea and chlamydia — to get tested for monkeypox.
They warned many patients were experiencing rashes and sores on the genitals and anus that looked like STIs. Several cases of co-infection with monkeypox and a sexually transmitted disease have also been recorded.
Health officials also revealed they had distributed more than 1,400 vaccines against the virus to states from their stockpile of more than a million doses. Another 300,000 doses are expected to arrive in the coming weeks.
But some experts have raised concerns that the country may not have enough jabs because if the outbreak becomes more widespread there may not be enough to jab the entire country.
America recorded eight cases of the virus between Wednesday afternoon and Friday morning, as the scale of the outbreak across the country continues to grow.
About three in four cases are currently linked to international travel, including to Europe, while others are linked to someone who has had close contact with a known case.
But there are ‘several’ patients across multiple states who have tested positive despite not recently traveling or having contact with a known case.
Dr Jennifer McQuiston, who is leading the CDC’s response to the outbreak, said it was likely the case that they acquired the infection from someone who had recently traveled but that this first case was yet to be spotted.
She added: ‘I can tell you that right now we don’t have an area that seems to be having an urban outbreak. There is no one area where it looks like there is a lot of community transmission.
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